It's the same spot from which Kelly holds his weekly formal news
conferences, both on the Tuesdays before regular season games and
post-game.

But the normal Oregon backdrop was gone, replaced by one from the Pac-12.

It's one more indication that the Pac-12 championship Friday
between the No. 8 Ducks (10-2, 8-1) and UCLA (6-6, 5-4) – 5 p.m., Autzen
Stadium, KPTV/12, Fox – is going to be different for everybody.

And, not necessarily in a good way.

Let's start with the match-up.

This can't have been what Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott
envisioned when the conference expanded to 12 schools by adding Colorado
and Utah so he could market a championship game for television.

UCLA will arrive on Friday as the worst participant in a major conference championship game in, well, forever.

No team with six losses ever has appeared in a conference title game.

No team with five losses ever has either.

UCLA is a more than four-touchdown underdog. The Bruins have about
as much chance of winning this game as of being greeted by 70-degree
temperatures at kickoff.

The Bruins lost 50-0 last Saturday to USC, which has a better
record and a higher ranking in the Associated Press poll than UCLA, but
is ineligible for the Pac-12 South Division championship because of NCAA
sanctions.

That led to an awkward series of questions, more about Neuheisel's firing than this, ahem, championship game.

A subdued Neuheisel handled it with poise.

"I'm excited for the challenge Friday," Neuheisel said. "If it's going to be my last time at UCLA, I want to make it special."

Asked to analyze his tenure in Westwood, the former Bruin quarterback said: "This
always has been a place that I wanted to help bring back to a place that
everybody would be proud. Obviously we've fallen short of that.

"But there are lots of things I'm very proud of that happened in my
time here. They don't always make it to the front pages of the
newspaper, but I think there was a lot of effort and good work done in
the time I was here. It won't be a bitter memory at all."

The bitter guy probably is Scott, who must have the spent the day
in the Pac-12 commissioner's office wondering why Guerrero couldn't wait
until Saturday.

But the show will go on, even if there currently is more interest
in Los Angeles in the coaching search than in Friday's game. UCLA
returned 800 tickets on Monday.

Oregon fans in attendance are going to notice changes in Autzen, because the Pac-12 has taken over.

"The whole stadium is going to be wrapped with Pac-12 signage,"
said Vicki Strand, the UO athletic department director of events
services. "The field all the way around will have a completely different
look."

The Pac-12 also will control Autzen's video board.

"All the things that we normally do, that we can just pull out of
the vaults from one week to the next, is all new," Strand said.

The conference wants a stage in the middle the field for the
pregame national anthem and for postgame awards. Half of the stage is to
remain off the field of play but in view of the fans for in-game
promotions.

It's Strand's problem to get the pieces of the stage where they need to be, when they need to be there.

The logistical issues have been complicated by the
holiday-shortened Thanksgiving week and the six, days between the end of
the regular season on Saturday and the championship game on Friday.

Some of the signage won't be finished and in place until – hopefully – Thursday.

It's a headache. Strand's headaches are never-ending.

There was, for instance, the chore of re-credentialing all 450
staff members and workers who used UO season credentials for the seven
2011 home games, but need a different one from the Pac-12 for this game.